The draft EIA can impact Assam's environment. Here's how

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification 2020 is set to replace and alter the existing 2006 EIA by modifying many of its clauses. Concerned people and domain experts allege that it deviates from the Environment (Protection) 1986 and international commitments. As such, civil society and students over the country have been raising their voice against the amendment.

A brief history

The EIA law was first adopted by the USA in 1969. Subsequently, several countries adopted EIA laws. India however, came up with this law only in 1994, in the form of a notification. The EIA notification was enacted by the Central Govt. because the Environment Protection Act of 1986 empowered Central Govt to adopt, enact rules, regulations, notifications on several environmental-related matters from time to time. In 2006, the said notification was amended. As per the said notification, there are several stages of EIA, starting from the screening of a project, scoping, public consultation (public hearing is part of it), formulation of EIA. There are primarily two categories of projects under the said law- Category A and B. Under Category B, there are two sub-categories- B1 and B2. Inside Northeast approached environmental law professor Chiradeep Basak who wrote back to us to explain the situation. The following are his inputs.

What the new notification modifies?

The existing notification requires the scoping of projects as B1 & B2 category on a case by case basis but as per the new draft EIA, they have predefined A, B1 and B2 categories so as to determine the jurisdiction of central and state govt agencies. In addition, a new Technical Expert Committee has been established which will be bestowed with the responsibility of categorization and even re-categorization of A, B1 & B2 projects on a regular basis but in consonance with scientific principles.

Around 40 forms of projects have been enlisted in the draft EIA, which are exempted from prior environmental clearance. In fact, some of the extraction projects are covered under this list (sand mining for example). As regards public consultation, the prior notice of public hearing has been reduced to 20 days, which gives very less time for any objections from the stakeholders. Certain toxic industries (red as well as orange) can run their operations in close proximity of between 0-5 km from any Protected Areas (National Park/Sanctuary).

The validity of EC for river valley projects has been escalated to 15 years from existing 10 years, mining projects has been increased to 50 years from the existing time period of 30 years. This will favour entities like COAL India and other Hydel power projects proponents

In the existing EIA norms, industries are required to submit two compliance reports/year but the draft EIA proposes to submit only one such report in a year.

Even the decentralized frame of EIA has been diluted upto certain extent because it does away with the prerequisite of expert committees to be set up in consultation with state governments and the central govt will determine the composition of the state level regulatory bodies dealing with EIA.

In addition, in 2015, one committee was formed by the Central govt under the chairmanship of T S R Subramaniam. Selected environmental laws were under the review of the said committee. environmentalists pointed out several criticisms as regards this committee, including alleging the said endeavour as an attempt to ease single-window environmental clearance by diluting stringent pre-existing standards. COVID-19 jolted the economy and I feel the government will aim to enhance the pace of industrialization for fixing the setbacks due to the pandemic but how sustainable will these development efforts be, that is going to be a matter of great challenge as well as concern.

How Assam will be affected?

Inside Northeast spoke to environmenatlist Mridupawan Phukan who discussed the issue in contrast to the Assam experience and the status quo that surfaces. "If you see even without the new EIA public views were in some avoided when clearances were given to OIL in Dibru Saikowa. They also gave the logic that local people were violent. However, that's wrong". He further allege about the issue of evergreening being done by the likes of OIL who uses old data to get clearances. "I was present at the early public hearings and in 2008 one meeting happened and on that basis that have been running the operations. We have to challenge these loopholes first".

He raised the issue about the new EIA notification that eases existing expansion of the projects and how it might be detrimental to the eco-sensitive areas. "Situation will turn only worse with the new modified EIA but that doesn't mean the current was any good. The logic OIL gave in the Bghjan episode was the well was started before the 2006 EIA, but then should have followed the 1994 notification, which is category A. Then, how did they get the clearance? It's just that now such things will be legally eased".

Going forward

Even before the EIA draft, there has been irregularities interms of getting clearances. This new draft increases the potential to carry them at an instituional level. However, the onus to monitor and stop such practises will only come if the public participates in the clerance process and not just come out later when things take a wrong turn. The state government departments also need to make sure due delligence of the law. As for the Centre, they need to understand the delicate geography of Assam and other ecological states, especially at a time when a Baghjan like incident has happened in the state.

-with inputs from Chiradeep Basak

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